Dear John Coltrane

DEAR JOHN COLTRANE

   dead night has me writing poetry
   in another hotel room. j. s. bach
   is on the radio, the keyboard concerto
   in f minor: the one you also hear
   on oboe or violin, the largo
   second movement begins
   & the book in my hand drops
   the room fades
   & i put my reason down
   to trail the bach of endless line
   along this earthless path, each note full
   & bright, a brilliant footprint on the dark
   thru beauty, past knowledge, into
   that state that shines too much
   to be wisdom, is too transparent
   to be art. i catch a fear of the place
   where he will lower me when
   this transporting melody closes
   then it closes on itself & here i am
   dear john, back at the beginning, better

   later, different station, cold room dimming
   it's you, john, trane's slow blues
   now it's your line that opens, & opens
   & opens, & i'm flying that way again
   same sky, different moon, this midnight
   globe that toned those now lost blue rooms
   where things like jazz float the mind
   this motion the still & airless propulsion
   i know as inner flight, this view
   the one i cannot see with my eyes
   open. i hear the beginning approach, &
   i know the line i traveled was a horizon
   the circle of the world, another freedom
   flight to another starting place

      if i believed in heaven i would ask
      if you, j. c., & bach ever swap infinite fours
      & jam the sound that light makes
      going & coming, & if you exchange maps
      to those exclusive clouds you travel thru
      & do you give them names?

A. B. Spellman has written a great deal about jazz. His classic book on jazz has recently been reissued as Four Jazz Lives (U of Michigan P). He was co-host of National Public Radio's Basic Jazz Library. Most recently, Mr, Spellman was Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

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